Page 19 of Danger Close

He scratched his red beard, which was sprinkled with white hair, not unlike my own.

Mack peered down at the woman under my arm and lifted a brow, waiting for an introduction and explanation. I was about to offer one when the conversation from the nearby dining nook drifted to us.

“Listen-listen-listen!” the one with the moustache said, “Get her knocked up, because you donotwant to be old, with a cane, trying to run after these kids, and you—” he pointed at the groom, Kai Griffith, “have been shot twice. That leg of yours is gonna be crying while you run after a toddler.”

“Nope,” Taz laughed. “Nope.Nope.Nope!”

She shook her head, her dyed black hair swishing around her shoulders, looking startlingly like her mother’s.

“I’m not opposed,” Griff, the groom, wrapped his arm around my daughter’s waist and pulled her in. “Whenever, wherever, and however many you want, Firefly, just say the word. I’m game.”

The smile he gave her left no doubt as to whatgamehe was into. Gross.

“Alright! That’s enough!” I bellowed. Taz practically jumped out of Griff’s arms. “I’m not ready to be a grandpa quite yet.”

I didn’t need to think about my daughter and her husband making babies. It was the agreement parents had with their kids. Iknowwhere babies come from, but I was in absolute and complete denial about wheregrandbabiescame from.

The conversation halted, as all eyes turned to me and the woman under my arm.

Griff took the first step, leaning forward to offer me a handshake. “Hey, Cobra.”

“How are you, son?” I let go of Teresa to give my daughter a side hug. “Hi, kiddo.”

“Hey, Cobra,” my kid said, her surprised, and suspicious gaze, on Teri. “Mama.”

Everyone else's brows lifted as they realized who the woman beside me was.

“Trinity,” Teresa said with a half-hearted, awkward smile.

Teresa placed her hands on Taz’s shoulder, and planted a kiss on each cheek.

My daughter shrank into her fiancé, as if he was her lifeline. Or maybe it was the guilt from not having invited her mother?

“You look well,” Teri concluded. “This must be the groom?Non?”

“I’m Kai Griffith. Everyone calls me Griff,” the boy said, not letting go of Trinity when he reached out a hand for a shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Guerro.”

“A pleasure,” she said, her eyes assessing him like he was day-old meat in a butcher window.

“I’m Goose!” The moustachioed man who wanted my daughter to get “knocked up” waved his beer bottle. “I had no idea you were French… or Canadian?”

Teri placed a hand on her heart, her brows lifting in feigned shock. Even her voice was completely different.

“Canadian? How dare you!” She clicked her tongue. “I’m from Paris.”

“Ah, the City of Love,” Goose said with a wistful sigh. “Hope to take my kids there some day.”

“Oh? You have children? How old are they?” Teri said, warming up to him considerably, making my hackles rise. Daria was a kidin her late twenties. Goose, on the other hand, was in his forties. Not so young that they couldn’t match up.

Over my dead body.

“Ten and thirteen,” Goose said, his smile bright.

“What dangerous ages for a parent,” Teri said with a smirk. “It’s nothing but difficulties from there.”

“Fact!” Goose said, tapping his beak-like nose.

“Mama!” Trinity hissed out.